The nice thing about having a week packed with important things is that if I start fretting about one I can distract myself with another. Pre-order days always turn me into a scattered mess. The first few hours in particular are like the first few steps onto a stage. You’ve practiced your lines, the set pieces are there, the lights are filling your view, but until the audience laughs at the first joke, you just can’t be sure it is all going to work together or just be an expensive mess. Apparently pre-order days also inspire run-on sentences. So at 10 am Howard and I were both terrified. The orders were coming in, but all the pent up anxiety over the success of the book and our business, threatened to overwhelm us. So we stood in the kitchen and talked of anything but business.
I think Howard did a better job of keeping his day on track than I did. I frittered away the day on distracting activities. By afternoon the fear subsided and we were able to function almost normally. Tomorrow I have to get back to work. Too many things for me to do.
The pre-orders are going well. We’ve sold over a third of the sketched editions. This is excellent for the first 12 hours. I hope this trend continues.